Verdict
Summary
It’s not a pleasant movie in the slightest; it’s gross, effectively off-putting, and yet it’s surprisingly strong as an existential comment on mental illness, spiritually disinclined rebels, and random acts of violence and murder. It’s incredibly disgusting and repugnant, so it’s clearly meant for a very specific audience.
Plot:
A rogue tumor grows to a hungry, insatiable beast with a penchant for fresh meat.
Review:
Cody (Scott Davis) lives with his cantankerous, cancerous mother, and he’s ashamed of her devotion to a televangelist who commands her attention 24/7. Cody’s social life is pretty healthy with a cute girlfriend and some friends who belittle him for his living arrangement with his mom, but everything changes one day when his mom literally coughs up her tumor, which crawls and makes its way to Cody’s bed where it crawls inside him and makes a cozy living space in his gut. He then begins coughing up blood over the next few days and having a desire to murder, starting with local girls whom he chases down and slashes to death, bringing their corpses home. Eventually, he coughs up the tumor, which has grown, and he begins feeding the growing tumor all the bodies that he’s been collecting. Soon, his kitchen and laundry room are home to the massive tumor monster, which devours entrails, body parts, and flesh of all kinds, including his mother and his girlfriend. By the time Cody comes to terms with his sins, it’s too late, and the monster has consumed everything in Cody’s world … including his sanity.
Down and dirty to the extreme, the micro-budgeted regional splatterfest The Abomination over delivers in the yuck department, with the second half of the film being an almost nonstop revolving door of gore, disgusting blood effects, and grimy scenes where the main character stirs up a cauldron of entrails to feed to the beast. Most of the movie has constant voiceover narration rather than dialogue, and the film was shot in a depressingly drab and ugly location, giving the entire film a strange and nightmarish quality that’s very difficult to describe. It’s not a pleasant movie in the slightest; it’s gross, effectively off-putting, and yet it’s surprisingly strong as an existential comment on mental illness, spiritually disinclined rebels, and random acts of violence and murder. It’s incredibly disgusting and repugnant, so it’s clearly meant for a very specific audience. Filmmaker Brett McCormick did an impressive job on almost no budget, but it’s a vivid document of despair and depression.
Visual Vengeance, a boutique label specializing in resurrecting long lost micro-budgeted weird regional films, has just released a premium Blu-ray of The Abonination, which upgrades all previous editions, but just remember that the film was shot on scratchy 16mm, so the film looks banged up and ugly, as the elements for the film were likely damaged over time. The disc contains a massive amount of bonus material, and the package comes with a poster, a comic book adaptation, and a booklet as well.
Bonus Materials
- Region Free Blu-ray
- New producer-supervised SD master from original tape source
- Limited Edition Slipcase by The Dude – FIRST PRESSING ONLY
- 12 page mini comic book – FIRST PRESSING ONLY
- Commentary with Director Bret McCormick, Rob Hauschild and Matt Desiderio of Visual Vengeance
- Commentary with Tony Strauss of Weng’s Chop Magazine
- “Monster Kid Movie Maverick” – Brand New, Feature-Length Bret McCormick Interview (2022)
- Actress Blue Thompson Interview (2022)
- Actress Victoria Chaney Interview (2022)
- Interview by producer Matt Devlen with The Abomination’s Original VHS distributor: Michael Jack Shoel (Donna Michelle Productions) (2022)
- The Abomination – Filming Locations Tour (2022)
- Super 8 Outtakes and Raw Footage – Reel 1 curated by producer Matt Devlen
- Super 8 Outtakes and Raw Footage – Reel 2 curated by producer Matt Devlen
- Behind The Scenes “The Stairway”
- Behind The Scenes “Tumor Test”
- Image Gallery
- Interview with “The Abomination”
- Bret McCormick – Original Super 8 Films
- Visual Vengeance Trailer
- Bret McCormick Trailer Archive
- 6 page Booklet with Essay by Tony Strauss
- ‘Stick Your Own’ VHS Sticker Set
- Reversible Sleeve Featuring Original VHS Art
- Optional English subtitles
